Iranian regime continues to crack down on press

New York, April 17, 2012--Sustaining their years-long campaign against the press,
Iranian authorities have sentenced one journalist to prison and summoned
another to serve a jail term, according to news reports. The Committee to
Protect Journalists calls on authorities to release imprisoned journalists who
are being held away from their families and in deprivation.

A Tehran Revolutionary Court
sentenced Reyhaneh Tabatabaie, a journalist for the reformist newspaper Shargh,
to a one-year prison term on April 2 for alleged "propaganda against the state"
and "weakening the pillars of the Islamic Republic," according to a reformist news
website. The court's verdict said her offenses
included reporting on the arrest of political prisoners after the 2009
presidential election, news reports said. Tabatabaie was arrested in December
2010 and released on bail a month later, the reports said. She has not been
summoned to serve her sentence yet, the sources said.

On April 4, Mehran Faraji, a
journalist who works for several reformist publications, was summoned to Evin
Prison to serve a six-month prison sentence, according to news reports. He was arrested in December 2010 and released on bail two
months later, news reports said. In July 2011, he was sentenced to a year in prison for "propagating against the regime,"
but in November 2011, an appeals court reduced his sentence to six months and a
five-year suspended prison term, news reports said.

"It's
bad enough that Iran imprisons any journalist who dares write down a critical
thought," said CPJ Deputy Director Robert
Mahoney. "But
it's even worse that those in prison should be denied family visits and
adequate medical attention. We call on the authorities to allow all imprisoned
journalists family visitation rights and to release all those who are sick on
humanitarian grounds."

A
number of other developments were reported in regards to journalists in prison.

Farshad Ghorbanpour, who wrote for several reformist news
publications, has been denied family visits while in prison, his wife told the reformist
news website Jonbesh-e-Rah-e-Sabz. The journalist
has been in jail since security forces raided his Tehran home in December 2011,
news reports said. He was first arrested in 2007 and released on bail a month
later, reports said. Shortly after, on an unknown date, Ghorbanpour was
sentenced by a Tehran Revolutionary Court to a one-year prison term and a US$5,000 fine for "acting against national security" by
"propagating against the regime" and "earning illicit revenue" through cooperating
with the reformist news website Rooz
Online. Authorities did not disclose
whether his current detention is related to his sentence.

Mohammad
Davari, a journalist who was sentenced in 2010 to
five years in prison on antistate charges and suffers
from a heart condition, among other illnesses, in prison, was denied furlough
for the third consecutive year, his brother told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI)
on April 13. Authorities have imposed a bail of US$400,000, an amount his
family is not able to raise, his brother said.

Ehsan Houshmand, a
journalist who was arrested in early January and accused of "propagating against the
regime," suffered severe ear pain after being beaten during his interrogations,
Nahid Kouhshekaf, his wife, told the ICHRI on April 3. Authorities told Houshmand his wife
would be arrested if he publicized any information about his case or condition,
Kouhshekaf said.

Family members of
Saeed Madani, the editor of a banned reformist monthly, said he was in solitary
confinement since his arrest in early January, his wife told the ICHRI in March. Madani's wife also said their family
had not been told of his condition in prison or any charges against him, the
ICHRI reported.

Kouhyar Goudarzi, who
writes for the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), was freed on bail on
April 12 after eight months in prison, CHRR reported. Goudarzi was sentenced in March to a five-year prison term on charges of
"propagating against the regime" and "assembly and collusion
against the regime," according to CHRR. He was arrested in the summer of 2011 and held in solitary
confinement in Evin Prison for more than 60 days, the report said. He was
previously arrested in December 2009 and served a one-year sentence on similar
charges, CPJ research shows. His mother, Parvin Mokhtare, who was also arrested in
August for speaking to international press during her son's imprisonment, was
released in March, news reports said.

Iran authorities have maintained a
revolving-door policy for imprisoning journalists, freeing some detainees on
furloughs even as they make new arrests. When CPJ conducted its annual
prison census
on December 1, 2011, Iran was holding 42 journalists in custody, the most in
the world.